Dumont d'Urville, Jules

Dumont d'Urville, Jules (-Sébastien-César)

(born May 23, 1790, Condé-sur-Noireau, France—died May 8, 1842, near Meudon) French navigator. His exploration of the South Pacific (1826–29) resulted in extensive revision of charts of South Sea waters and redesignation of island groups into Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and Malaysia. In 1830 he conveyed the exiled king Charles X to England. He set sail for Antarctica in 1837; though unable to penetrate the pack ice, his expedition surveyed the Straits of Magellan, discovered Joinville Island and Louis Philippe Land, and sighted the Adélie coast (named for Dumont's wife) before returning in 1840.